Todd Wood on Is Genesis History?

Todd Wood has a post on the reactions to the film Is Genesis History? and he makes some very good points and a couple of lousy ones.  First the good ones.  He writes:

Does the film present a false dichotomy? From the world outside of young age creationism, it definitely does. Lumping all the other positions on creation and evolution into one monumental thing isn't really fair to the vast diversity of opinions out there. That part is quite correct, and if I was an old-earth creationist or theistic evolutionist, I would definitely be bothered by that.

He is absolutely correct about this.  It does bother me that there is a false dichotomy presented here.  I do not for one minute think that the universe and all that is in it was created by blind, godless processes. I have a firm and strong faith in the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the creating power of God.   I also do not think that the universe was created six thousand years ago.  There is simply no defensible empirical evidence for that.  Second point:

Unfortunately, the reality is that we all divide people up into "us vs. them." Let's face it, BioLogos would have you divide up the world into BioLogos vs. those who reject all of science. That's not remotely fair. Paul Nelson wants the dividing line to separate those who accept design and those who accept only naturalistic processes. That division would exclude those, like BioLogos, who think the "naturalistic" processes are God's design. RTB's dividing line isn't so easy to summarize but I guess it would cut off Christians who think the world is young on the one hand and those who think evolution is real on the other.

Too much of this does go on, it is true. I don't think that he has completely accurately characterized the position of BioLogos and it is passing peculiar that he doesn't mention ICR or AiG and the fact that they are pretty specific about who is US and who is THEM.  I do know from my own blog posts and writings that I am guilty of this sort of thinking and that there are many different views along the continuum from the straight six-day model to flat-out atheistic naturalism.

Now the lousy ones.  First:

The theological importance of the historical Genesis is a giant theme of young-age creationism, even if you reject the way some creationists present it. In the case of RTB or Intelligent Design, the theme seems to be fighting over things that really matter like evolution, and not fighting over things that don't matter like the age of the universe. If we don't focus our real disagreement on the "most important" issues (like design), then we damage our witness by exaggerating the importance of secondary issues.

Wrong. None of these issues really matter to the faith. You can be a young-earth creationist, an intelligent design supporter or an evolutionary creationist and STILL be a Christian. In the grand scheme of things, evolution doesn't really matter.  Every Christian should believe the following:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father, by whom all things were made.  Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man.  He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.   He suffered and was buried.  The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.  He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father.  He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead.  His kingdom shall have no end.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, and who spoke by the prophets.  I believe in the holy catholic and apostolic church.  I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.  I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. 

That's it.  If you believe those things, you are in the body of Christ.  Nothing outside of that is fundamental to the faith.  That includes evolution.  Second lousy point:

And finally, to those of you patient people who actually read all of this and are still fuming, "That movie was terrible and misleading, and the greater sin is theirs!" you are part of the problem, my friend. If you play the outrage card (BioLogos), you just add fuel to the fire. The response will be, "BioLogos is the one repeating tired old lies about young-age creationism!" So please think carefully before you email me your outrage, and maybe direct that energy to thinking about ways of moving forward and not just yelling the same things at our deafened ideological "enemies." I'd love to hear new ideas.

This gives cover to those who DO intentionally misuse and misrepresent scientific evidence for their own gains.  One of the things that drives me bat crap crazy is that AiG gets scientific information wrong almost all of the time. If you don't hold those people accountable for their abuses of science, and point out where these people are going off the rails, then they get off scot-free and mislead more people.  Wood himself has castigated other creationists for saying that there is no evidence for evolution when there is, in his words "gobs and gobs of it." 

I may not agree with Todd's interpretation of Genesis, but in his scientific endeavors, he always treats the science with respect.  The same cannot be said for many in the YEC universe. Here's a new idea: how about the folks at ICR and AiG actually treat the science with the respect it deserves.  Science is not the be-all-and-end-all.  It only describes the physical universe, but it does a pretty good job of that and if you are going to reject it, come up with some sound hypotheses that can be tested.

ICR Planning Its Own Museum

Not to be outdone by the Petersburg, Kentucky, the Institute for Creation Research is planning a creation museum at its headquarters in Dallas, Texas.  Robert Wilonsky, of City Hall Blog, writes:

The institute, which spent months in court fighting the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for the right to dispense master’s degrees in creationism, has been trying to raise funds to build the 30,900-square foot museum for years. There’s a concept proposal floating around that dates back to 2011.

In the September issue of its magazine Acts & Facts, its chief executive officer, Henry Morris III, says he finally got enough money to move ahead with the project.

The ICR, if you will recall, was once located in sunny California, near San Diego, but relocated to Dallas because they wanted to confer masters degrees in creationism to their students and the California Higher Education Commission said no.  They lost the fight in Texas as well and still cannot dispense graduate degrees in creationism.

The ICR has to get the project past city hall, which may be quite a hurdle because the location of the ICR is zoned for “Industrial Research.” It will be interesting to see how this one turns out.

Acts and Fiction: The ICR Does A Hatchet Job on Dmanisi Skull 5

The ICR has, bluntly, called the description of the new Dmanisi skull 5 a fraud.   Lets find out why.  The conclusion, based on the descriptors of the morphology of skull 5 is that it has a mix of early Homo and Homo erectus traits.  Brian Thomas of the ICR thinks it is nothing more than an ape.  In support of this, he puts together seven points, which I will take one at a time.  The analysis is somewhat repetitive at times because Mr. Thomas' points, themselves, are.

Point No. 1

It is anatomically quite different from known human skulls. The Science authors wrote, "The morphology of skull 5 stands apart from that of any other known fossil Homo specimen through its combination of a small braincase with a large prognathic face." Maybe it "stands apart from" man because it was not a man. Could it actually be an ape's skull?

Well, no.  It has no ape characteristics at all.  They are clearly hominin in nature.   For example:

1. The foramen magnum (the hole for the spinal column) is at the base of the skull, rather than the back, as is the case for apes.  It is how we know that it was bipedal.  There is not a single ape, fossil or otherwise that has this characteristic. 
2. On observation of the skull, there is clearly an angular torus (a ridge of bone extending from the ear to the back of the head), a trait not found in early African Homo but found in the rest of the Dmanisi skulls and all East Asian Homo erectus specimens, suggesting that this population represented a point at which there was radiation out of Africa in two directions, toward Europe and Asia. This is not a trait found in any ape. 
3. When scaled for brain weight/body size, the brain case is too large to be an ape.  It is clearly a hominin.  Further, other skulls in the Dmanisi sample range from 601 to 730 cubic centimeters in size, a quarter more to double the size of any extant or fossil ape. 
4. The teeth are clearly hominin in morphology (see images below).  While there is considerable procombency of the incisors (they angle forward from the face), there is no expansion of the canines beyond the tooth row, the premolars are not rotated to sharpen the canines and there is no diastema (space) between the canines and incisors to make room for an expanded canine in the opposite tooth row.  This is clearly a hominin mouth, not an ape one.

Point No. 2

It is too loosely linked with human postcranial material. The study author's phrase "probably associated" cannot substitute for solid scientific evidence.

So?   Say it isn't linked with any of the post cranial material.  That doesn't change the morphology of the skull in any way.

Point No. 3

It has a very ape-like brain volume—far smaller than that of a human. It was estimated at 546cc, similar to that of gorillas and Australopiths, but only about half the average size of a human

As Mr. Thomas so correctly notes, the cranial size is not necessarily an indication of intelligence or of hominin status.  He also doesn't define what he means by "human."  Conventional anthropologists define "human" as being bipedal (and not the weird Oreopithecus-style gait).  No other primate does this and it dates to around 4.4 million years ago.  Further, given that size is not a reliable indicator, point 3 above still stands.

Point No. 4

It has a heavily built, ape-like jaw. Skull 5 "has the largest face, the most massively built jaw and teeth and the smallest brain within the Dmanisi group," according to a news release from the University of Zurich where three of the Science authors work.⁴ But where is the evidence proving that all five Dmanisi skulls even belong to the human group?

There is variability in all fossil samples. For example, the Mladeč sample from central Europe that dates to between 34 and 37 thousand years ago is quite variable, with some crania resembling Neandertals and others resembling modern humans. Further, as Lordkipanidze et al. point out, the range of variation present in the Dmanisi sample is not greater than what one would find in a sample of chimpanzees or the world-wide sample of modern humans (although intra-populational differences in the modern human sample, I am quite sure, are less).

Point No. 5

It links to other material that is not clearly identified or dated. The Science authors reported, "Furthermore, the remarkably large and robust dentognathic remains of early H. erectus from Java (Trinil/ Sangiran) exhibit close affinities with skull 5." But the abstract describing the Java remains reads, "Temporal changes, within-group variation, and phylogenetic positions of the Early Pleistocene Javanese hominids remain unclear."
Additionally, experts in human evolution have a long history of assigning human and ape remains to the Homo erectus human category. By tying skull 5 to past category confusion, the Science authors muddied their own identification of skull 5 as human.

The fact that some temporal changes in Homo erectus remain unclear does not diminish the importance or morphology of the East Asian Homo erectus fossils, themselves, many of which are nicely dated to between 1.5 and 1.8 million years ago.  From the paper that Thomas cites:

Further, it is absolutely clear that there are differences between these hominins and later populations:   The Bapang-AG H. erectus population is advanced, showing a similar degree of dentognathic reduction as the Middle Pleistocene Chinese H. erectus represented by the Zhoukoudian and Lantian remains. In this respect, this population is significantly derived relative to African early H. erectus and the oldest hominids of Java (Grenzbank/Sangiran group). However, it remains unclear whether these apparent similarities reflect affinities or homoplasy between the Bapang-AG and Chinese H. erectus.

Thomas' second point on tying this skull to category confusion is a terminological inexactitude.  Experts in human evolution do no such thing.  In fact, there has been a raging dispute about how expansive the Homo erectus taxon actually is, with splitters, like Ian Tattersall on one side arguing that the human fossil record between 2 million and 500,000 years B.P. is taxonomically more diverse than we think and Milford Wolpoff, who argues that we need to lump everything into Homo and dispense completely with the taxon Homo erectus.  The only person I know of who is assigning too many fossils to Homo erectus is Marvin Lubenow who, in his execrable book Bones of Contention was unable, as nearly as I could tell, to distinguish Homo erectus from anything else and who made numerous errors because of this.  Further, Lordkipanidze and colleagues did not tie the skull to category confusion, they attempted to place it taxonomically within the entire range of Homo.

But even if it were case that they were tying skull 5 to Homo erectus, that is still nothing like saying it is an ape, since no Homo erectus fossils are ape-like in any way, shape or form.  Case in point:

The top image is an African Homo erectus specimen (KNM-ER 3883) while the bottom one is a chimpanzee.  The differences are striking.

Point No. 6

The researchers' approach to skull 5 may be similar to other fraudulent or dubious finds. Dutch physician Eugene Dubois, anxious to find proof of human evolution, uncovered the famous Java "man" fossils in 1891. It was not until 30 years later that Dubois revealed the truth behind the find and admitted he had been hiding fully human skulls from the same Javan site. Some later suggested that his Java man skull cap was actually that of a gibbon. Could today's scientists be subject to the same eagerness to prove evolution, leading to skewed analyses? Because human origins research can be so subjective, one researcher of the history of paleoanthropology voiced a relevant caution: "We have only to recall the Piltdown adventure to see how easily susceptible researchers can be manipulated into believing that they have actually found just what they had been looking for."

The Science authors also wrote that skull 5 looks like the famous KNM-ER 1470 found in Africa. But skull 1470 was pieced together from so many separated fragments that it may not constitute a real, single individual. Understandably, its identification has long been difficult. Who knows which pieces were from humans and which were from apes?

Even so, the part of skull 1470 showing a forehead and human-like brow ridges differs from the apish appearance of skull 5. Did the Science authors link skull 5 to Africa's KNM-ER 1470 for evolutionary rather than anatomical reasons?

Okay, this one made me really mad because it accuses the researchers of not being competent or careful about what they have described.  The remains that DuBois uncovered were manifestly Homo erectus.  They weren't fully human and they sure as heck weren't a gibbon.   The research community refused to accept DuBois' claims because they thought he was working in the wrong part of the world, and they were susceptible to eurocentrism, a problem which dogged the discipline for decades.

Human origins research isn't any more or less subjective than any other scientific enterprise.   It grows and changes in relation to new data that is unearthed.  You might say the same thing about cosmology or cell theory or microbiology, fields that are always attempting to understand how things work.  Researchers are human and they make mistakes.  But they also try to fix them.  What is conveniently left out of Thomas' paragraph is that the Piltdown hoax was uncovered by scientists, working with scientific methods.  Science, as a self-correcting enterprise, works very well, and palaeoanthropology is no different. 

Regarding ER 1470, his reference is another young-earth creationist, Duane Gish, who has been shown repeatedly to have a severely limited knowledge of the fossil record (See Don Prothero's book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters for examples)  The idea that it represented pieces of humans and apes is unsupported.  The skull has many, many contiguous pieces—enough to reliably construct the cranium and the face.  Further, the pieces that were found are manifestly not from fossilized apes, none of which have ever been found in East Africa.  The primary dispute was not what it looked like, the primary dispute was how old it was. Richard Leakey said that it was 2.9 my old and everyone else said "Well, no, Richard, that can't be right."  Eventually, when stratigraphic and radiometric analysis was done, it was discovered to be around 1.9 million years old.

Point No. 7:

It is replete with ape features. Skull 5 has a U-shape dental arch, not the more parabolic shape humans present. Its chin slopes back like an ape without the forward-jutting bottom point of a human chin. There is no human nose bridge, and it has prominent attachment points for enormous jaw and neck muscles.

It most certainly does have a human-shaped dental arch.  Turn any human skull on its head and you will find dental anatomy exactly like what you find in Skull 5. Lets take a look.  On the left is a modern human from an inferior view.  On the right is Dmanisi Skull 5.  The tooth rows are very similar in shape, with similarly-proportioned teeth.

 

Now lets compare both of these skulls to that of a chimpanzee to see exactly what the differences are.

Well, for one, you can clearly see the diastema between the canine and the incisors.  You can also see that the maxillary tooth rows in the chimpanzee are parallel, instead of a gentle U that you see in the other two skulls.  The canine on the chimpanzee is very expansive, sharp and extends beyond the tooth row.  Further, you can see that, in Skull 5, the foramen magnum is underneath the skull, not toward the back as in the chimpanzee.   Skull 5 looks nothing like the chimpanzee skull and, in fact, shares most (if not all) of its similarities with the modern human from this anatomical position.

The lack of a chin is absolutely expected at this point in human evolutionary history and is related entirely to tooth size.  As the front teeth have shrunk in size, the bone has resorbed in the front of the jaw, creating the chin.  In fact, tooth size has continued to shrink even since the advent of modern humans, with an 11% drop since the Neolithic.  What Mr. Thomas does not seem to realize is that the chin has only appeared in the last 100 thousand years and is absent not just on early Homo but Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens.  The lack of a chin, in no way impairs its status as a hominin, unless you don't consider Neandertals hominins.  There is no human nose bridge on the skull because that didn't appear until archaic Homo sapiens, some 400 thousand years ago.

Thomas ends his article with this: 

Biblical creationists are not restricted to interpreting skull 5 according to evolution. Instead, they are free to exercise a healthy scientific skepticism of current interpretations. If Dmanisi skull 5 ends up not being human at all, then its titillating implications for human evolution fizzle. It would then simply become an extinct ape kind's skull found in a long-collapsed animal den into which saber-toothed cats may have dragged both human and other prey.

This is only true if the information is being treated honestly. Unfortunately, because Mr. Thomas does not possess the necessary education in either comparative primate or fossil human anatomy, he cannot do this. That he has seemingly failed to educate himself on even the basic anatomy necessary to understand these errors further compounds the problem.  His analysis is riddled with inaccuracies and unwarranted conclusions and, as such, constitutes no evidence against evolution or that the Dmanisi fossils are anything other than what the investigators say they are.

This is yet another hatchet job by the ICR.

Hat tip to Todd Wood.

Todd Wood Thinks SB893 is Superfluous

Todd Wood has written to Governor Haslam, arguing that the passage of SB893 is pointless. The link to the letter appears to be broken on Todd's page, so I quote it in part. He writes:

Because of my religious convictions, I am a committed creationist, but unlike many creationists, I have grown quite weary of the creation-evolution propaganda war. I believe this bill is an ideal example of what's wrong with the creation-evolution war. For example, since the bill clearly states that religious discussions are not protected, it could not be used to permit "some Sunday school teachers to hijack biology class by proxy," as the editorial in the March 21 edition of the Tennesseean suggested. On the other hand, my own reading of the bill indicates that it provides no protection that teachers don't already have. Teachers are already well within their rights to discuss any scientific evidence that pertains to the prescribed curriculum and to encourage critical thinking about it. Many already do.

Interestingly, he hits on a particular problem in his opening statement involving creationism: it doesn't stand on its own merits. It is specifically tied to a “religious commitment.” This is counter to the position by the mainstream organizations such as AiG and the ICR, which have argued for decades that their science is as good as mainstream science and shows that the earth was created in six days six thousand years ago.

I have often wondered if a challenge should be issued: that someone would come forward who is convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the earth and the universe were created in six twenty-four hour days six thousand years ago and that the geological column represents the effects of a world-wide flood but who is either an atheist or a hard-line agnostic. I doubt such a person exists.

The second problem that I have is that I don't think that the law is superfluous. Right now, if someone teaches recent earth creationism in the classroom in public school, they run the risk of being fired, like John Freshwater was. Now that the law has been passed, there is no oversight and such teachers are beyond the veil of accountability. The only way such a person would be stopped is if a lawsuit such as the one at Dover, PA were brought forth. Does the state really want that, with the media circus it would entail? Then it really would be Scopes II.

----------------
Now playing: Stan Getz - Sunshower
via FoxyTunes

Chris Mooney Wonders “Why The Scientifically Literate Can Believe Silly Things”

In an article for Discover Magazine, Chris Mooney asks this question. He opines:

If you understand motivated reasoning, then you understand that high levels of knowledge, education, and sophistication are no defense against wrongheaded views like climate change denial and anti-evolutionism. What I’ll call “sophistication” may even make these phenomena worse, at least among those with deeply ideological or religious views.

The reason is that when we “reason” in areas where we have strong beliefs, our emotions come first and then we rationalize our pre-existing views. And those better at generating self-affirming arguments will be better rationalizers, will fall in love with their own seemingly brilliant arguments, and their minds will become harder to change (but they’ll love to argue).

There is also the considerable problem of “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. ”For some of the large groups that deal with this issue, such as the Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis and Creation Research Ministries, they get things so obviously wrong that blowing the arguments out of the sky is a comparatively easy task. Other groups, however, such as Reasons to Believe and The Discovery Institute use arguments that are subtle and require a considerable amount of knowledge in a given field to determine where they go off the rails. Just ask Steve Matheson and Todd Wood. Given the Discovery Institute's active role in trying to influence anti-evolution legislation, it becomes increasingly important to alert people to these errors, since your average legislator won't be able to spot them.

----------------
Now playing: Rush - New World Man
via FoxyTunes

Education Week: Evolution Education Working

According to an article in Education Week, the fallout from the Dover trial in 2005 has been bad for creationism and intelligent design. Sarah Sparks writes:

The National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, and other groups have increased research investment on identifying essential concepts for teaching evolution, including creating the Evolution Education Research Centre, a partnership of Harvard, McGill, and Chapman universities, and launching the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the subject, Journal of Evolution: Education and Outreach.

The journal was free for its first two years but now is behind a subscription wall. It is a top notch journal, though and worth seeking out. Sparks goes on to describe the different programs that are being implemented throughout the country but cautions that there are still problems:

Teacher education also has opened up as a new front in the battle over evolution in the classroom, according to Mr. Eberle. The Institute for Creation Research, which promotes creation-based science teaching, recently moved from California to Texas to fight for state accreditation to establish a master’s degree program in science education. Also, Louisiana has passed an “academic freedom” law protecting teachers who supplement their standard science textbooks with other materials; a state committee explicitly rejected a move to bar creationist or intelligent design materials from those supplements.

“If you take this term of ‘academic freedom’ more broadly, does it mean a teacher can teach anything?” Mr. Eberle asked. “It’s been narrowly applied to evolution, and I think it’s another term to accomplish the same goal” to undermine the scientific validity of evolution.

It should be noted that the ICR failed miserably in its bid to get accredited in Texas and has closed their "graduate program" in science. Interestingly, while there are many teachers that are skittish about teaching evolution, if you asked them if they were going to teach transmutation of gold or that the earth is flat, they would respond negatively. Why people feel different about evolution lies mostly in their lack of understanding of what the theory does and does not explain and deep-seated fears that it will upend their faith. The problem is that, if you are a young earth creationist, it will.

ICR Loses Appeal

Jonathan Turley is reporting that a Texas appeals court has upheld the decision by the Texas Higher Education Commission to deny the Institute for Creation Research the right to grant graduate degrees in science. He writes:

A panel of science education experts found little evidence of science in the degree or its underlying curriculum. The panel concluded “much of the course content was outside the realm of science and lacked potential to help students understand the nature of science and the history and nature of the natural world.”

The school claimed violations of free speech, free exercise, equal protection and due process. However, under the rational basis test (which sets an extremely low standard for the government), the court granted summary judgment.

The rational basis test (if I understand it correctly) dictates whether the court believes that the government has a vested interest in the outcome of a case and whether or not it should involve itself. It saw no such interest. It is interesting that the case was based on violations of free speech and exercise and not on the basis of what the panel found—that the scientific content was non-existent.

----------------
Now playing: Genesis - Carpet Crawlers 1999
via FoxyTunes

Uncommon Descent Gets it Right (And Nature Immunology Gets it Wrong)

In the most recent post on Uncommon Descent, Scordova points out that the journal Nature Immunology, in their May editorial, takes some pot shots at Francis Collins, head of the NIH and founder of the BioLogos site, for his Christianity. The unsigned editorial can be found here. Scordova writes:

May, 2010 editorial in Nature Immunology makes it clear that they don’t trust religious persons–even those who are neo-Darwinian evolutionists like Francis Collins–in positions of scientific authority.

The editorial is basically a long argument that falls under the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy—correlation does not imply causation. They begin:

The newest book authored by Francis Collins, Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith, was released in March 2010. A collection of essays addressing the rationality of faith, the book reflects the struggle of great minds of the past and present—philosophers, poets, scientists—to understand the urge to believe in a supernatural power. It is advertised as an essential companion for anyone seeking clarity in the ongoing debate between reason and faith: seekers, believers and skeptics.

The publication of the book has great potential to reignite some nagging doubts over the election of Francis Collins as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Many hoped that after his nomination he would refrain from publicly discussing his religious convictions and step down from projects such as Biologos, which attempts to reconcile evolution with the idea of God. This, however, has not been the case, and although most agree that Francis Collins is a skilled administrator, there are justified concerns that such public embrace of religion from an influential scientist may have negative consequences on science education.

This idea might, in and of itself, have merit, if there was evidence that Collins was subverting science education in this country. But there is none. The editors then recount several events in the last five year that detail the struggles that have been waged regarding science education over the country. These include the Dover-Kitzmiller case, the 2008 Louisiana "Academic Freedom" bill and the results of several polls suggesting that the acceptance of evolution in the United States is lower than it should be.

This is all certainly bad news but how is it remotely Francis Collins' fault? By their own admission, he has lamented the lack of evolution education and has never shied away from describing himself as an ardent evolutionist and is a prolific and gifted scientist. It is therefore, a bit puzzling when the editors refer to him only as a "skilled administrator." They write:

In the introduction and in interviews surrounding the book release [Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith], he describes his belief in a non-natural, non-measurable, improvable deity that created the universe and its laws with humans as the ultimate aim of its creation. Some might worry that describing scientists as workers toiling to understand the laws and intricacies of this divine creation will create opportunities for creationism adepts.

What they fail to recall is that when he was appointed as head of NIH, many creationist groups decried the appointment. Ken Ham, for example, wrote:

It is true that in this era of history, people are asking questions about Genesis, as they recognize that if Genesis is not true, how can one trust any of God’s Word? Collins is offering them answers that will only further undermine biblical authority—AiG is giving answers that stand on biblical authority, and, as a result, so many have testified they became Christians or rededicated their lives.

Lawrence Ford of the ICR wrote:

Should we conclude that Dr. Francis Collins is not a "born again" Christian as described in the Bible? He appears to be genuine and sincere in his belief that Jesus Christ is his personal Savior. But quite troubling is Collins' public and proud disbelief in the historicity of the Bible, the existence of Adam and Eve, the event of the Fall, and many more fundamental doctrines of God's Word--leading one to conclude that even if he is a Christian, his self-selective beliefs are terribly resistant to God's truth, revealing his dangerously poor view of the power of God. Like the Sadducees, Collins errs by "not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God" (Matthew 22:29).

Neither of these quotes faintly resembles high praise. These were calls to the "Christian" community to reject Francis Collins as a role model for Christians. It is only those of us who accept evolutionary science that welcomed his appointment and hoped he would truly be the bridge between science and faith.

But the problem, of course, is the faith. The editors of Nature Immunology have failed to distinguish between someone like Collins, who is not just a Christian but an accomplished scientist, and someone who supports creationism at the public school level, and this elementary lack of discernment is troubling and insulting.

----------------
Now playing: Alex De Grassi - Clockwork (Studio)
via FoxyTunes

ICR Loses Suit

The Institute For Creation Research has lost a suit to the Texas Higher Education Board, which denied the organization's request to grant master's degrees in science education. As the NCSE reports:

The issue was not, strictly speaking, about accreditation, but about temporary state certification, which would have enabled the ICR graduate school to operate while it sought accreditation. When in California, the ICR graduate school was accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, which requires candidate institutions to affirm a list of Biblical Foundations, including "the divine work of non-evolutionary creation including persons in God's image." TRACS is not recognized by the state of Texas, however, and after the ICR moved from Santee, California, to Dallas, Texas, the ICR expressed its intention to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

This was the out for the court. That way, as the NCSE site explains, there would be no construal of anti-religious sentiment by the court. On a scientific note, many breathed a sigh of relief when this decision was rendered. While the decision was legally-based, that ICR simply is not qualified to issue masters degrees in science education as long as what comes out of the ICR isn't science. This becomes clear when reading their posts about new scientific discoveries (see here ). The ICR says they will appeal the verdict.

----------------
Now playing: Alan Parsons - Alpha Centauri
via FoxyTunes

Acts and Fiction: The ICR Tackles Australopithecus sediba

Brian Thomas of the ICR has a take on Australopthecus sediba in the recent news section of their web page. It doesn't start out well:

Evolution's search for the "missing link" between man and ape has a long and troubled history. Australopithecus sediba is the latest fossil find that is claimed to represent evolutionary human ancestors. But the remains of this extinct ape provide several solid clues that contradict any evolutionary relationship to man.

First, the remains were dated at 1.9 million years, which is at least one million years younger than evolutionary ages assigned to some fully human remains.1 If Au. sediba really were an ancestor to man, then its kind would have morphed into mankind and ought therefore not exist (as man's ancestor) after mankind had already arrived on the scene.2 Fossil ages from both species overlap considerably according to standard dates, thus failing to line up chronologically with an evolutionary scenario.

Well, first, evolution has never searched for the "missing link" of anything. There is no applicable concept in evolutionary biology for the concept since it is biologically meaningless. If Thomas has only read the popular press, he probably would have picked up on this term. It doesn't shows up in any of the Science papers on A. sediba, which one would hope Mr. Thomas has read.

The rest is just nonsense. He doesn't define what he means by "fully human." Therefore, one can only guess which hominids he is referring to. If he is referring to modern humans, he is 900 000 years off the mark. If he is referring to Homo erectus/ergaster, his timing is right but these remains aren't fully human by any stretch of the imagination. Even a cursory glance at these remains reveals this. It is therefore, not possible for A. sediba to "morph onto the scene" after the appearance of modern humans since even Homo erectus wasn't around at this point.

Additionally, how does the fact that the species overlap fail to "line up chronologically with an evolutionary scenario?" This is only true if one holds a strictly unilineal, vertical view of evolution, one that wasn't held even by Darwin. Such a view reflects a complete lack of either understanding or education in evolutionary theory by Mr. Thomas, suggesting he is not remotely qualified to write this essay.

He then completely misquotes Bill Jungers and his analysis of Ardipithecus. Thomas writes:

Just a few months ago, anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy promoted Ardi as an ape who walked upright. But to William Jungers of Stony Brook University Medical Center--who, like the rest of the world, was only able to review the evidence after Ardi had already been proclaimed a walker in the publication of its initial study--the reconstructed skeleton "really doesn't show any adaptations for bipedalism at all."

What Jungers was actually quoted as saying was this:

None of the known foot components, no matter how well adapted to climbing, preclude Ardipithecus from walking upright on the ground. Jungers, however, thinks "it really doesn't show any adaptations for bipedalism at all." In fact, he says, many components of Ar. ramidus don't make Ardi look that much more adept at walking upright than chimpanzees—a primate that White et al. disavow as a model for early human evolution. In a summary paper led by Lovejoy, the authors describe Ardipithecus as a "facultative upright walker," one that can walk on two legs if needed (to carry something in the forearms, for example) but that isn't necessarily prone to do so. (emphasis mine)

Jungers wasn't talking about the skeletal reconstruction, he was talking about only the foot. He further indicates that, while he does not accept all of the evidence for bipedalism in Ardipithecus, he agrees that it would have been more bipedal than a chimpanzee.

Thomas then completely misreads the account of Berger's search for taphonomic data to understand how A. sediba died and to see if there is any residue of an endocast. Here is what Thomas writes:

For such soft samples as brains and insect eggs to have been preserved for thousands of years would be "special" enough, considering how quickly such organic materials decay. But to expect someone to believe that brain tissue escaped decay for 1.9 million years is asking far too much. It would be like expecting someone to believe that Au. sediba was man's ancestor--even though its skeleton was entirely ape-like and it supposedly lived long after its own descendants.

What Thomas doesn't seem to understand here is that Berger is looking for fossilized remains. Throughout hominid palaeoanthropological research, numerous brain endocasts have been found. In fact, one was recovered with the first australopithecine found, in 1924. Along with the face and a partial skull-cap, the fossilized brain of Australopithecus africanus was presented to Raymond Dart at the University of Witwatersrand. Immediately, he recognized that he was not looking at a run-of-the-mill primate but, rather, one that had human traits. This, and other discoveries, have led researchers to reconstruct how the brains of these early hominids differed from those of later ones. In fact, it has given rise to one of the most celebrated disagreements in palaeoanthropology, that between Dean Falk and Ralph Holloway, about just exactly how modern the brains of australopithecines were.

Thomas is completely unaware of this. Consequently, his comments are not just uninformed, they are ridiculous. The ICR's writers, once again, demonstrate that they are simply unwilling or unable to comprehend basic science.

----------------
Now playing: Burt Bacharach - Pacific Coast Highway
via FoxyTunes

The Anti-Vaccine Movement and Creationism

Josh Rosenau has a very good post on the similarities in thought of those who have been pitching the anti-vaccine message and young earth creationists. He writes:

Like creationism, global warming denial, stem cell opposition, and anti-GMO sentiments, this is a cultural and political battle being confusingly fought on scientific turf. As such, the debunking of this and any other supposed scientific basis for opposing vaccines does not ultimately dissuade anti-vaccine activists from their work. And public health suffers as a result.

This is similar to the situation in the creationism wars. We spend a lot of time on blogs and in books and in the occasional debate arguing about fossils and genes and homologies, but none of that will ever convince someone wholeheartedly committed to creationism. No one becomes that sort of creationist on the basis of the science. They become a creationist of that sort because of how they see religion, and how they think that relates to science.

The effect of the retraction of the Lancet paper on the MMR vaccine that fueled the controversy had a predictable effect on those vocal in the crusade, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy, who are now arguing that the retraction is an act of censorship.

Reading the post and some of the comments to the post, I am struck that there are two kinds of approaches to the scientific data that people can take when they address that data: those that have a preconceived notion of what the data can and cannot say and those that are willing to go where the data leads them. He recounts the tale of Glenn Morton who was forced to abandon his YEC beliefs because the science led him away from that sort of interpretation. Contrast that with the ICR's Radio Isotopes and the Age of the Earth project, in which the "correct" interpretation of the data (that the earth is less than 10,000 years old) was never in question, it was just a matter of demonstrating it. As both Kevin Henke and Randy Isaac have noted, this is reprehensible from a scientific viewpoint. If one is not willing to go where the science leads, don't get into the science. As Lt. Uhura noted in Star Trek III: "Be careful what you ask for. You might get it."

----------------
Now playing: The Alan Parsons Project - To One In Paradise
via FoxyTunes

Muslims Rejecting Evolution

Ruth Gledhill, the religion correspondent for the Times Online writes an article examining current Muslim attitudes toward evolution. She writes:

Nidhal Guessoum, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, told the conference, being held in Egypt by the British Council, that in too many places students and academics believed they had to make a “binary choice” between evolution and creationism, rather than understanding that one could believe both in God and in Darwin’s theory.

Such is the understanding of many Christians today in the United States and Europe. This is largely promoted by both militant atheists and militant creationists. She continues:

Addressing the conference in Alexandria, organised for the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, he said that concerns among Muslims about evolution were being fuelled by Christian creationists. People in Muslim countries would find creationist theses on the internet and, not realising that these were on the fringes of scientific debate, assume that creationism had scientific credibility in the West.

“It is a serious problem,” he said. “It would be like going to my students and telling them the planets are not related to the stars, there is no relationship between them and gravitational pull or radiation, and they were all created on one day. We would not dream of describing the cosmos in such a ridiculous manner ... We cannot allow people to go into the 21st century with no understanding of science.”

He would not think of it and yet that is exactly what young earth creationists believe—without a shred of evidence to support it. Groups like the ICR that strive for scientific credibility have used the Internet as a tool to spread the creationist message.

The one thing that I teach my students in Information Literacy is that the Internet is a double-edged sword. It is great for finding all kinds of information that you would, ordinarily have to go to print resources to find but, because there is no editing or accountability, anybody can publish anything they want on the Internet without the slightest bit of academic integrity. Less-suspecting individuals will then take this information and incorporate it into their thought structure without realizing that it has no academic merit. That is why this blog (and many others) exists—to combat that in some small way. That I have to try to counter the lack of academic integrity of many other Christians is more than a little troubling.

----------------
Now playing: Jean Michel Jarre - Zoolook (Remix)
via FoxyTunes

Should I or Shouldn't I?

One of our church friends gave my wife a video by the ICR and said "Jim should watch this." My wife, being the sensible person she is, promptly hid the video under several stacks of books in the kitchen. Not good enough!! "Hey, what's this? Ooooooohhhh, blog fodder," I exclaim. "Oh, please don't," she says. I understand her frustration. On the one side, she knows that most of her Christian friends have embraced this "flat earth" Christianity and doesn't want to rock the boat. On the other hand, she knows enough of the evidence, both from her father and then her husband, that the YEC perspective doesn't hold water. So she would just rather the whole thing went away. I, likely, should honor her request.


But that doesn't mean I can't watch it...


----------------
Now playing: Yes - Roundabout
via FoxyTunes

Acts & Fiction: Werner Arber and the ICR, Again

Lawrence Ford of the ICR has a rebuttal article in this month's Acts & Facts, in which he supports Jerry Bergman's original conclusions in his article of June of 2008 in which he called Nobel Laureate physiologist Werber Arber a "Darwin Skeptic." Arber issued a sharp criticism of the ICR in general and Bergman in particular, following that article. Ford writes:

Our September 2008 issue featured the article "Werner Arber: Nobel Laureate, Darwin Skeptic" by Dr. Jerry Bergman, a frequent contributing author. While not labeling Dr. Arber a creationist, Dr. Bergman demonstrated to readers that this brilliant scientist has included God in his equation when considering the origin of life.

While quite true, that was not the point of Bergman's article in the first place and it sure as all get out wasn't what fueled Arber's response. When asked by Bergman about the origin of life, Arber, in his initial response to Bergman's article, said this:

On solid scientific grounds one cannot expect to discover if a Creator as defined by religious beliefs and sometimes referred to as intelligent design or God's Will, could be responsible for the origin and subsequent evolution of life. Serious scientific investigations can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God or a possible impact of God on evolutionary processes. In our civilization, both scientific knowledge and religious beliefs contribute essentially to our orientating knowledge, but these two sources of our worldview should not be intermingled.

Sounds okay to me. But here's the problem. That wasn't the point of the original article. In the originial article, Bergman stated that Arber was a Darwin skeptic. Arber responded that he was nothing of the sort:

In conclusion, I am neither a "Darwin skeptic" nor an "intelligent design supporter" as it is claimed in Bergman's article. I stand fully behind the NeoDarwinian theory of biological evolution and I contributed to confirm and expand this theory at the molecular level so that it can now be called Molecular Darwinism.

In response to this, the ICR state that:

Dr. Bergman's correspondence with him and review of the original materials supports the conclusions of the Acts & Facts article. Those who rely on macroevolution as the source of life stand on shaky ground because of the obvious design in molecular structures. Creationists, however, have no trouble finding an explanation--life was designed by God.

This is patently false. Dr. Arber's response in no way supported the conclusions of Jerry Bergman's article, which sought to portray Werner Arber as someone who did not accept evolution. Whether or not Dr. Arber believes in God is irrelevant. Further, there was nothing in Dr. Arber's response that indicated that he did not accept macroevolutionary mechanisms. Questions about the origin of life do not encompass evolutionary theory. Of course Dr. Arber would respond by saying he didn't know about the origins of life. That is not part of his research.

More Acts and Fiction from the ICR.

Two Bills Die in Texas Legislature

The NCSE is reporting on two bills that have died on the vine. The first one is the exemption bill for the ICR that would allow them to operate and grant degrees without having to undergo the same standards that every other degree-granting institution does. The second is the bill that would have put back the "strengths and weaknesses" language into the science standards. As the article notes, the ICR is suing the Texas Higher Education Commission for its decision. Good luck with that one, guys.

Texas: Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire

Texas democrats claim they have enough votes to remove Donald McLeroy as head of the Texas State Board of Education, according to a story by Gary Scharrer in the Houston Chronicle. He writes:

The Bryan dentist has presided over a contentious 15-member State Board of Education that fought over curriculum standards for science earlier this year and English language arts and reading last year. Critics faulted McLeroy for applying his strong religious beliefs in shaping new science standards. McLeroy believes in creationism and that the Earth is about 6,000 years old.

“This particular State Board of Education under the leadership of Dr. McLeroy has been divisive. It’s been dysfunctional, and it has been embarrassing to the point of having commentary on this in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

McLeroy’s leadership, she said, had made Texas “the laughing stock of the nation.”

It certainly has done that. But just when you thought things in Texas might get better, comes this:

There is speculation in the Capitol and within the Texas Education Agency that Gov. Rick Perry might elevate Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond, to lead the board. Like McLeroy, Dunbar also holds strong Christian beliefs and recently authored a book that advocates more religion in the public square. “We believe that Texans deserve better than divisive, destructive, extreme leadership,” Shapleigh said. “If the governor chooses to appoint someone more extreme and more divisive, we’ll have to deal with that at the appropriate time.”

Ms. Dunbar, if you will remember, stood up in front of the Texas Board of Education and completely misrepresented Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Werner Arber's work as being anti-Darwinian on the strength of an ICR paper by Jerry Bergman. The misrepresentation received swift condemnation from Dr. Arber, himself. If Cynthia Dunbar is raised to the head of the SBOE, Texas may be back at square one.

Acts & Fiction

The new ICR Acts & Facts magazine has several interesting columns in. One of them is Galapagos: Showcase for Creation, written by John Morris, the son of the late Henry Morris, head of the ICR. In it, he writes:

The Santa Cruz River was the Beagle's first major stop, and thus Darwin's first chance to apply Lyell's ideas. Dr. Austin discovered Darwin had made numerous errors in Argentina as he attempted to interpret the river valley according to uniformity, and mistook major Ice Age flooding for great ages of minor processes.

Of course, Dr. Morris does not say what these errors were, just that Darwin made them. You have to go to another article, Darwin's First Wrong Turn, by Steven Austin to get that information. In that article, Austin suggests that Darwin misidentified part of a section of the river bank as a basalt flow. Austin states that it cannot be a basalt flow but must, instead, be the remains of a catastrophic flood channel. Austin writes:

Why was Darwin so wrong concerning his interpretation of the river valley? First, he had expectations about what he would see at Camp Darwin before he arrived. His scientific judgment was tainted by preconceptions. Second, Darwin was reading the wrong book before his journey up the Santa Cruz River valley. He had been reading Charles Lyell's book Principles of Geology (1830) during his trans-Atlantic voyage on the Beagle. That book gave him the idea that the biggest boulders were deposited from melting icebergs.

Austin provides no evidence that the deposits were not the remains of a melting glacier. He simply says that there had to have been a colossal flood. Back to Morris. He writes that Darwin observed the finches on the Galapagos Islands and applied natural selection to them. Of this, Morris states:

Evolutionists trumpet the several Galapagos finch "species" as arising by adaptation from one species. Creationists agree, but this did not happen through evolution. Normally the finch types segregate by lifestyle according to their beak shape, but in times of stress they interbreed and combine. No evolution here. The flightless cormorants are recognizably related to other species of cormorant on other continents, but these have lost the use of their wings. Since when is the loss of a useful structure an evolutionary development? The real question is how animals acquire wings in the first place, not how they lose them.

Darwin correctly observed that the finches in different islands looked different and that their beaks were different. In other words, they had adapted to their environments. What is this an example of? Evolution. How did flightless cormorants lose the use of their wings? Evolution, that's how. Descent with modification. This could happen any number of different ways. For example, a small population may have broken off in which a mutation for flightless wings was present. In small populations, this trait would have expressed itself. In the presence of no selection in favor of flight, the trait would eventually permeate the population. The fact that flightless cormorants exist at all means that they can survive just fine without wings that fly. There may have been another reason why they retained the wings but not the ability to fly with them. Wings make great insulators. In the Liaoning fossil beds in China, researchers are discovering flightless dinosaurs that had wings. And that, by the way, is how they acquire wings in the first place. Any time you have descent with modification, you have evolution going on. More fiction from the ICR.